Daily News

Belgium – Randstad dumps discriminatory firms

21 December 2012

Dutch recruiter Randstad has revealed that in the past two years it shut the door on eight companies which clearly held discriminatory views during recruitment after several damning reports showed that the staffing industry in Belgium is still plagued by cases of discrimination.

Staffing firms have been accused of turning a blind eye to discriminatory practices to please customers. But Randstad is hoping to help rid the industry of this stigma. The company said it did not comply with the requests by those eight companies because they were violating discrimination law.

But Jan Denys at Randstad Belgium said that discrimination in the staffing industry is still a problem. Often the staffing company is able to convince clients to “adjust” their demands. A sample of applications at Randstad offices recently showed that 15% of them showed discriminatory bias.

Most often, discrimination is based on gender, age and ethnicity. Mr Denys said that 85% of companies played by the rule. Anti-discrimination experts said it was still worrying to know that 15% are known to discriminate although the staffing industry has been recognised as a key player to tackle the issue.

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